Tuesday 21 July 2009 07.11 EDT
First published on Tuesday 21 July 2009 07.11 EDT

If there's one story that has had bloggers feverishly typing away this week, it's the news that critics will be dropped from the judging panel for the Tony awards. Adam Feldman of the Time Out New York blog is particularly incensed. For him, the conflict of interest justification is "thin stuff indeed". Feldman feels the decision "represents another regrettable step toward the marginalisation of critics within the New York theatrical community".

Responses across the blogosphere have been rather mixed. Isaac Butler considers the awards to be a largely irrelevant sideshow to the business of watching theatre. "There's all sorts of things wrong [with the Tony awards]," he says, "and this is just another thing on the list." Chloe Veltman believes journalists are "the most impartial members of the group and are less likely to be swayed by cronyism". The Playgoer shares her concerns, describing the decision as "a shameless move by the Broadway League and American Theatre Wing (who run the thing) to take the Tonys even one step further towards blatant infomercial". The Playgoer concludes, rather pithily, that the awards could end up as simply a "Politburo of puffery".

For Rob Weinert-Kendt at the Wicked Stage, the issue is neither particularly surprising nor important. He says that "most awards shows hover in a vaguely nauseous zone between trade show and state ceremony" so why does it matter that the Tonys are headed this way too? I'm inclined to agree. Ultimately, given that the awards exclude everything that happens off-Broadway – where most of the genuinely exciting work in New York is produced – one has to wonder why they should matter that much to critics. They are, and always have been, about money rather than art. So who cares?

Elsewhere this week, the Devilvet blog is mulling over that age-old problem of what to say to an actor who turns to the writer and declares "my character would never say that". For the Devilvet, these moments, far from being a problem, are when the play can most illuminate what it is to be human: "This sort of thing happens in life all the time. We say one thing expecting it to sound strong, but rather we end up exposing our weakness. The words we speak sometimes fail as indicators of what the moment actually is." And, surely, if a play is well-written, then the excitement for the performer is finding a way to bind together all the contradictions in a character and hold them up for an audience to see.

Finally, while we are on the subject of new writing, Tim Bauer is discussing the etiquette of literary management. Bauer is annoyed that American theatres' literary departments rarely ever bother to acknowledge that they have received a play once it has been submitted to them. British theatres, he says, are paragons of politeness. They always acknowledge receipt of the script and even when they eventually say no, "you get these super-friendly rejection emails that you want to print up and frame". It is often said that Americans are far friendlier than Brits, so it is good to see that this is one area where we fare better.